Day 2: Akumal

So, where was I? Akumal, Mexico on the Yucatan Peninsula. We had four days to ourselves (Derek, Me, and three of our friends) before a group of 20 students and professors from the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department at Northwestern joined us for a week of learning about the local ground water flow and carbonate platform. I know, sounds exciting, right? But it really was one of the best times I have had in a long time (excluding our honeymoon, of course)

Day 1 was filled with airports, airplanes, broken luggage placed in a bag, and waiting around, blah, blah, boring. Once we made it out of the "Airport of Thousands of Tourists from America" aka Cancun Airport, we found a lovely little place in Playa that had yummy shrimp tacos. With bellies full of local goodness we finally made it to our home away from home in Akumal. We had just enough time to snorkel before dark. The day ended with overpriced food at the tourist trap before we all passed out from a long day.

Day 2: We did a lot of hanging out on the beach and snorkeling. We finally found a turtle and a beautiful reef system where we ended up spending a lot of our snorkel time. We also got some scuba diving in before the intense winds hit, canceling all reef dives for the rest of the week.



The sunsets and warmth were a much needed break from the dark cold winter of Chicago.


This next picture makes me a little sad. I loved these gord lights that where hanging in our favorite eatery. I had my heart set on bringing one home with me, but I waited too long and never got the chance to buy one. I am hoping I can convince my dad to make one for me.


The day ended with some Mexican beer and food at the "barstool" restaurant. We pretty much ate here for the rest of our "alone time".



I have some picture of scuba diving and snorkeling that I will post as soon as I can get them off of Derek's computer (which happens to be at school right now).